Screenshot of Logo! news programme produced by state broadcasters ARD\/ZDF for children [Photo: YouTube logo! channel]<\/p>\n
\u201cEven children must become \u2018fit for war\u2019\u201d\u2014could have been the appropriate title for the\u00a0Logo!\u00a0broadcast about conscription earlier this year.\u00a0Logo!\u00a0is the news programme produced by state broadcasters ARD\/ZDF for children. Since 1997,\u00a0Logo!\u00a0has been broadcast on the children\u2019s channel KiKa and transmitted daily since 2010. The\u00a0no.front\u00a0segment recently debated the question \u201cShould there be compulsory military service again?\u201d The segment can be watched\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0in German.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the pro-and-con debate format\u00a0logo! no.front, moderated by Maral Bazargani and Sherif Rizkallah, young people discuss a current news item or a topic relevant to the target group,\u201d is how the broadcaster describes the segment. Three children face off with opposing positions. The aim is supposed to be to find common ground or even reach a compromise.<\/p>\n But moderator Rizkallah apparently understood \u201cno front\u201d differently\u2014he confronted and attacked almost continuously the three children on the anti-war side.<\/p>\n Rizkallah set the tone right from the start and did not even attempt to present a balanced picture. Russia\u2019s attack had shown that wars were once again possible in Europe, and \u201cwe must prepare for that,\u201d he declared, entirely in the service of the government\u2019s\u00a0\u201cnew era\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in foreign and defence policy.<\/p>\n Any mention of past illegal or aggressive deployments of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces)\u2014in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan or Syria\u2014was absent from the entire broadcast, as was any reference to Germany\u2019s murderous history of two world wars.<\/p>\n Instead, he wielded questionable statistics suggesting that a majority supported conscription. According to\u00a0Logo!\u2019s own survey, 61 percent of students had said they would be willing to fight for their country in an emergency.<\/p>\n By contrast, the results of the \u201cYouth Trend Study 2025\u201d published in June with 5,000 participants between 15 and 30 years of age painted a very different picture: 81 percent of this age group were not willing to die \u201cfor their country,\u201d 69 percent also did not want to defend it with weapons. Polls among the general population\u2014by the Bundeswehr Centre of Military History and Social Sciences (ZMSBw) in 2024, or the opinion research institute Forsa in 2025\u2014also showed that 52 and 59 percent respectively also rejected defending Germany militarily.<\/p>\n The entire\u00a0Logo!\u00a0broadcast followed a clear line: children were to be made enthusiastic about Germany being made\u00a0\u201cfit for war,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0as the defence minister put it. Rizkallah never questioned the positions of the three children who spoke in favour of conscription but attacked the three who argued vaguely against it.<\/p>\n Supported by a short clip portraying the need for tens of thousands of soldiers and the supposedly inadequate financing of the Bundeswehr as objective facts, Rizkallah launched his attack right at the beginning with the question: \u201cIf, now, an incredible number of people were to think like you\u2014who would do it then?\u201d<\/p>\n As already indicated: there are\u00a0in fact\u00a0an incredible number who think this way. To further discredit these positions, he even asked one child from the opposing side whether it was not \u201cabsurd\u201d and an \u201cegoistic decision\u201d to live safely here but say: \u201cI don\u2019t want to do anything for it.\u201d To the moderator\u2019s likely great disappointment, the child defended the stance as being completely comprehensible.<\/p>\n As the discussion continued, Rizkallah then tried to build bridges and persuade the contra side\u2014saying, one could also serve as a doctor, engineer or cook. He also sought to sweeten the current arrangements, since military service relies on volunteers.<\/p>\n The moderator\u2019s rhetorical tricks were reminiscent of the repulsive methods with which conscientious objectors were confronted in the past. With a focus on emotional appeals, the causes of war, rearmament and Bundeswehr deployments were completely left out. In the end, Rizkallah staged an apparent compromise: everyone would agree that one should give something back to one\u2019s country\u2014whether militarily or otherwise.<\/p>\n This single broadcast did not come out of nowhere. On the\u00a0Logo!\u00a0website, under the keyword \u201cBundeswehr,\u201d there are 33 entries\u2014from the trivialisation of the Afghanistan deployment to a sentimental video about \u201cPapa as a soldier\u201d to an explanation of the new\u00a0Veterans\u2019 Day<\/a>. But not a word about the Nazi past of the Bundeswehr, right-wing extremist networks or abuse in the forces.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Logo!\u00a0example shows a profound upheaval in post-war German society. Despite the continuity of old Nazis in business, politics and the civil service, German imperialism was forced to eat humble pie after the end of World War II in 1945. Subsequently, broad sections of the population were shaped by a pacifist approach to education and scepticism about war.<\/p>\n As recently as a few years ago, parents from the Green milieu expressed outrage if children played \u201cshooting\u201d games or took on warlike roles.<\/p>\n This is not the place for a comprehensive discussion of the pedagogical background. The fact is: while opposition to war remains deeply rooted in the working class, a pacifist upbringing became a political problem for the ruling class at the latest with the declared \u201cnew era\u201d and the return of German militarism from 2013 onwards.<\/p>\n An example is a column by Jan Fleischhauer in news weekly\u00a0Der Spiegel\u00a0(2016), in which he mocked researchers who criticised Logo! for \u201cmilitarisation in the nursery.\u201d Referring to the Cologne New Year\u2019s Eve\u00a0incidents<\/a>\u00a0and citing the far-right \u201cviolence researcher\u201d\u00a0J\u00f6rg Baberowski<\/a>, he concluded that \u201ca bit of militarisation in the nursery\u201d might \u201cpossibly be quite useful in the course of globalisation.\u201d<\/p>\n The repulsive\u00a0Logo!\u00a0broadcast fits into this general shift to the right. Since the war in Ukraine, politicians and the media have been increasingly dropping their mask. The end of pacifist education goes hand in hand with the bankruptcy of pacifist politics. The Greens\u2014once a self-declared pacifist party\u2014are today the most militant mouthpiece of German militarism.<\/p>\n